I have a roll of the 18" wide plastIc wrap that I use. The roll is huge and one lasts me for a very long time-years and years, but it's much stronger than the usual stuff and the size makes it very handy when I do need it. Since it is as wide at my sheet pans, when the dough is that size I know to stop. And it sticks less than parchment. As for parchment being too small-go to a local bakery and ask to buy a couple dozen of their full sized sheets. It's 18x24 inches. Should handle any home pizza needs. A whole box has 1,000 sheets and you can order them online. After all, they never spoil!

Don’t become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a puffer fish.

Not exactly cookware, but good jars are all kinds of awesome.Mason jars, with those white lids? Awesome.Mason jars, vacuum packed with regular lids? Awesome.Quality bail jars, such as Bormioli Rocco Fido, and Le Parfait? Awesome.Misc. ne'ertobemadeagain yard sale jars? Awesome.Used plastic jars, like from fruit in syrup? Great for bulk spices, IMO.

DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.

I've inherited an 8-quart Magnalite pot from my grandmother, and recently my dad bought up a whole bunch of other sizes off ebay and restored them up a bit. They're cast aluminum with nice, thick bottoms and not-as-thick sides -- great for browning gravy, making sauces, or any manner of cooking. The lid is rimmed/fitted to help retain water as well. They're also branded as "Wagnerware." I highly recommend this line if anyone's buying any manner of pot in the future.

The time and seasons go on, but all the rhymes and reasons are wrongI know I'll discover after its all said and done I should've been a nun.

cerbie wrote:Not exactly cookware, but good jars are all kinds of awesome.Mason jars, with those white lids? Awesome.Mason jars, vacuum packed with regular lids? Awesome.Quality bail jars, such as Bormioli Rocco Fido, and Le Parfait? Awesome.Misc. ne'ertobemadeagain yard sale jars? Awesome.Used plastic jars, like from fruit in syrup? Great for bulk spices, IMO.

Those mason jars will be great for home-canning, if you intend on getting into that. Best brands are Ball and Kerr. You just need to get brand new lids (the part with the red band on the inside), and make sure there aren't any nicks or scratches on the jar. It's work, but so well worth it, whether you grow your own veggies, or buy them in bulk at the produce section of a grocery store, warehouse club, co-op, or some little produce stand at an intersection.

cerbie wrote:Not exactly cookware, but good jars are all kinds of awesome.Mason jars, with those white lids? Awesome.Mason jars, vacuum packed with regular lids? Awesome.Quality bail jars, such as Bormioli Rocco Fido, and Le Parfait? Awesome.Misc. ne'ertobemadeagain yard sale jars? Awesome.Used plastic jars, like from fruit in syrup? Great for bulk spices, IMO.

Those mason jars will be great for home-canning, if you intend on getting into that. Best brands are Ball and Kerr. You just need to get brand new lids (the part with the red band on the inside), and make sure there aren't any nicks or scratches on the jar. It's work, but so well worth it, whether you grow your own veggies, or buy them in bulk at the produce section of a grocery store, warehouse club, co-op, or some little produce stand at an intersection.

Finally started, this year. I've wanted to, before, but finding all the canner parts and canning tools has taken time, since none of them had been used in 20 years (luckily, the canner was stored indoors, so the old rubber is still good). Just broth and chili, so far, to test the waters, and I'm looking out for current seasonal vegetables. I would like to can many pints of spaghetti sauce, if possible, as store-bought took a nose dive when oil speculation got out of hand around '07-08, and that quality has stayed poor. Supermarket tomatoes, by and large, are also hardly even worth adding to salads, much less trying to make sauce out of. Mountains of local ugly tomatoes are what I want .

It may be work, but believe me, collecting and cleaning out old jars, that was real work. About 2/3 of the old jars were salvageable, though, even being stored exposed to the elements for a couple decades.

Ball, Kerr, and Bernardin are the same company, now, and all are fine canning jars, AFAIK. The Walmart and Better Homes and gardens jars are obviously of far inferior quality.

I've been seriously considering picking up some Tattler lids. I doubt BPA from home canned goods is going to make much of a difference, but Jarden's, "the FDA approves it, so why should we care?" response to concerned parents is irksome, and I generally dislike consumables designed just to be thrown away, when there could be long-term reliable options. I've also found that new lids only last 2-4 times for vacuum packing (old lids last longer, but I doubt their cycle life will be indefinite), so re-usable lids would help there, too.

DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.

cerbie wrote:I would like to can many pints of spaghetti sauce, if possible, as store-bought took a nose dive when oil speculation got out of hand around '07-08, and that quality has stayed poor. Supermarket tomatoes, by and large, are also hardly even worth adding to salads, much less trying to make sauce out of. Mountains of local ugly tomatoes are what I want .

Make sure to check the jars for nicks, scratches, and other imperfections. These can be bad news for home canning. If any of the jars have these, toss them out.

As for lids, the screw-bands can be used again and again, but the rubber seal parts should really be replaced. I've always thrown them out when I'd open the jar.

One thing I've discovered about canning chili and spaghetti sauce is that during processing, some of the flavor leaks out, so you end up with a slightly bland spaghetti sauce or chili.

There are two options to this:

1. Buy the spaghetti sauce seasoning mix specially made for home canning, which can be costly,2. Can just the tomato sauce "as-is" (no ingredients added, just tomatoes and salt to taste), then when you're ready to make homemade spaghetti sauce (100 times better than store-bought), just dump a pint or quart or two into the pot, add your spices and other ingredients (if you plan on a chunky sauce with onions, peppers, mushrooms, meat, etc.) and cook.

As for the supermarket tomatoes being sub-par, most varieties found in the supermarket are not of saucing quality. Most tomatoes at the store are meant for slicing or dicing into salads, sammiches, or as a side item. Heirloom varieties are best for saucing. What you want to look for is a lot of "meat" or "flesh" in the inside of the tomato, little to no water, loose skin (easy to peel), and very few to no seeds.

To prevent over-salting or under-salting, and to prevent from it being too "tomato-y" or acidic, do what my mom did: Use a can of supermarket sauce to compare. Once you've got them both matching in taste and everything else, dump the store-bought sauce in with the homemade (cheating, I know, but why let perfectly good sauce go to waste?) and begin canning.

PatrickRsGhost wrote:Make sure to check the jars for nicks, scratches, and other imperfections. These can be bad news for home canning. If any of the jars have these, toss them out.

As for lids, the screw-bands can be used again and again, but the rubber seal parts should really be replaced. I've always thrown them out when I'd open the jar.

Check and check. Many had minor scratches, thus the ~1/3 not salvageable.

Re-using the standard lids is regarding vacuum sealing. Thus far, no lids from the 80s have failed, while four good sealings is the most I've gotten out of a new lid. The older lids are much thicker, and so less prone to warping when being opened.

DSenette: (...) on the whole, even a trained killer cow is kind of stupid.

I recently got my Masterclass knives sharpened professionally. I've had them for four years and they are still fantastic. They feel great to use. The masterclass pans and whatnot I bought at the same time are just ok, certainly not as good as, say, le Creuset.

For anyone that doesn't already have one, I can heartily recommend investing in a pizza stone.

Basically a tile in the proper dimensions that you place in your oven and bake the pizza on that - mine cost me $30, and damn the pizza just got a lot better than it does on a standard oven plate in metal.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it - Aristotle

A White Russian, shades and a bathrobe, what more can you want from life?

Ulc wrote:For anyone that doesn't already have one, I can heartily recommend investing in a pizza stone.

Basically a tile in the proper dimensions that you place in your oven and bake the pizza on that - mine cost me $30, and damn the pizza just got a lot better than it does on a standard oven plate in metal.

Would a pizza stone work for breads too? I know that sometimes bread recipes want you to have some sort of stone in the oven. I'm guessing a pizza stone would be fine, but I'm not sure.

PAstrychef wrote:Baking stones are good for bread, and I just use unglazed tiles from Home Despot, laid out on the rack. You do need to heat them for at least 30 minutes before baking on them for the best results.

I can vouch for the awesome that is baking bread on a stone. I got one for Christmas, but PAstry's idea sounds just fine to me.

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PAstrychef wrote:Baking stones are good for bread, and I just use unglazed tiles from Home Despot, laid out on the rack. You do need to heat them for at least 30 minutes before baking on them for the best results.

I've seen someone go so far as to line the floor and walls of their oven with bricks before baking. It gets you even closer to that 'brick oven' taste.

The other option is you can simply befriend the staff at your favorite local brick oven fired pizzeria and see if they don't let you throw in the odd baked good now and again.

ancientmath wrote:I hate this one really lightweight soup pot that we have at home. It got warped, and now it moves all over the place when I'm boiling water in it. Pans with a heavy, thick bottom are much better.

ancientmath wrote:I hate this one really lightweight soup pot that we have at home. It got warped, and now it moves all over the place when I'm boiling water in it. Pans with a heavy, thick bottom are much better.

Two words: Dutch. Oven. Get thee one.

I swear by my Le Creuset pots. They'll never let you down and with care, like a good pair of proper shoes, they just keep on giving year after year.

Alternatively, if you're time strapped, you could go for a Thermal Pot aka Thermal Cooker aka Thermal Vacuum Cooker.

More info can be found at the following link : http://marleneonthewall.hubpages.com/hub/Another-Kitchen-Must-Have-The-Thermal-Cooking-Pot

My cook's knife just got back from the sharpener, and I'd forgotten how awesome a nice sharp knife is. I hone regularly, and it's really not that expensive to take it to the professionals ($10ish, and I only have two knives I need sharp), but I figure I should learn to maintain my knives myself. Does anyone have any recommended sharpening equipment? I don't want one of those pull-through carbide blade chewers, and it doesn't make sense to spend too much money on equipment to sharpen $25 knives (Dexter-Russells), so I was looking at this and things like this. Any recommendations?

Sarah said she just heard an episode of America's Test Kitchen where they were recommending a super cheap sharpener. Dunno if she can find the episode or what, but hey... HEY SARAH. HEY. She'll read this if I bug her.

That would probably be the AccuSharp. I hear it's pretty good, for a tungsten carbide pull-through thingy, and it's probably a good option for the cheap knives I have. But I think I'll go with some kind of whetstone or one of those things with the fixed angle rods, to get some practice in before I switch to a better knife.